SALT LAKE CITY — A fire ripped through a vacant home in Emigration Canyon Saturday afternoon.
It is unknown how the blaze started at 3000 E. Emigration Canyon Road, but after an aggressive initial attack, Salt Lake and Unified firefighters scaled back and took a more defensive approach, spraying water from outside the home, said Unified fire spokesman Eric Holmes.
"There's a lot of unknowns with vacant houses," he said. "When we don't know what's inside, we tend to not risk as much as we would for people who may be living in the house."
Neighbors called about the fire after seeing smoke rising from the area about 11:30 a.m. Holmes said an owner had been contacted, but the home hadn't been lived in for "quite a few years."
The winter weather also posed some problems for firefighters, as "cold weather and water don't mix very well," Holmes said. "It tends to turn to ice pretty quickly."
He said firefighters, however, are trained and capable regardless of the weather.
No one was inside the home at the time of the fire and no one was injured in fighting the blaze that burned for a couple of hours. The cause of the fire and the extent of damages was still being investigated Saturday evening, Holmes said.